


alive, alive

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: mcsmooch, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-05
Updated: 2007-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:17:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney works it out, and John falls apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	alive, alive

**Author's Note:**

> Episode tag to 4.04.

The door chimes at some ungodly hour, so innocuously gentle that John wishes it were possible to choke it, take hold of the sound and wring its goddamn neck. His relationship to sleep is fucked up enough after the last few days; like he needs interruptions when he's trying so hard to chase down drowsiness, sink in his nails, grab it and let it drag him under. But the door chimes again and he pushes himself up on one elbow, blankets sliding messily to his hips, thinks 'open' at the door and scrubs a hand over his face.

Rodney steps inside.

"What?" John asks, already reaching for his radio, trying to force his sluggish brain to process _new emergency, wake up, wake up._.

"No, no – " Rodney takes a step forward, palm outstretched. "It's not – we're okay."

John drops his radio back on the table beside his bed, squints at Rodney. It's possible everything's swaying a little. _God_ , he's so tired. "What?" he asks, and it's a brand new question, even if the word's the same.

Rodney takes another step, shifts into the half-light coming in from the windows, gift of more moons than John cares to think about. "I just – realized . . . "

John waits.

"Realized that your nightmare was that I was dead," Rodney says in a rush, and John half expects to see him tilt his chin, but instead his face is kind.

It's too much to process – his defenses are down and that's really fucking unfair, the fact that he can't keep his feelings off his face, mixed-up and strange and half-mad as they are, and he's tired, so tired, and it _hurts_ to think of Rodney dead, and he gets that ache again, under his ribs, that he remembers from the nightmare. God. _God_. He wants to hit something, cause someone pain. "Yeah," he manages, hoarse.

And suddenly Rodney's not across the room – he's there, beside him, crowding him back into his pillows, and his lips are soft, sweet, moving gently. John hiccups a breath, curls a hand around the back of Rodney's neck and closes his eyes so that nothing can escape – sensation, meaning, salt ( _so tired_ ). Rodney kisses like he means it, like there's nothing in the world but this, and when they're both out of breath, when they're trembling and gasping and John's feeling sixteen, Rodney maps a detour to John's jaw, his throat. "Don't," John whispers, because he can't begin to stand this, the way this makes him feel valued, cherished, _wanted_ for more than his body and his gun.

"Shhh," Rodney says, and the murmur of his voice is taut with things John can't name but thinks he understands. And when he falls asleep, it's tucked against a body that's warm and steady, heart beating a mantra of _alive, alive_.


End file.
